Blog 5: 3/3/11 Principal's Corner

Chapter 7 & 8 Vocabulary Vitalizer and Literary Luminator by Melissa Rife
sources: http://dictionary.reference.com
             http://outreach.msu.edu
             http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii

1. Security:  freedom from care, anxiety, or doubt; well-founded confidence.  —Synonyms
2.  assurance, certainty, positiveness. 3.  safeguard, safety.
 

2. School Climate:   School climate reflects the physical and psychological
aspects of the school that are more susceptible to change and that provide the preconditions necessary for teaching and learning to take place.
School climate,  is evident in the feelings and attitudes about a
school expressed by students, teachers, staff and
parents—the way students and staff “feel” about
being at school each day.

3. Bureaucracy: a system of administration based upon organization into bureaus, division of labour, a hierarchy of authority,   etc: designed to dispose of a large body of work in a routine manner
 

4. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:  Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 (Pub. L. 102-166) (CRA) and the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (Pub. L. 111-2) amend several sections of Title VII. In addition, section 102 of the CRA (which is printed elsewhere in this publication) amends the Revised Statutes by adding a new section following section 1977 (42 U.S.C. 1981), to provide for the recovery of compensatory and punitive damages in cases of intentional violations of Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

5: Qualifications:  the act of qualifying;  state of being qualified. 

  

Luminator
 " the fact remains that people's general resistance to change makes instituting change in organizations one of the most difficult challenges leaders face. Bringing about meaningful change in public schools can be even more difficult because seemingly every year teachers are required to master and teach the latest and greatest program to improve reading or math or spelling scores, only to find that this year's innovations are inevitably replaced by next year's. " pg. 85
Sometimes evening saying the word change is hard. I have not had many years of teaching however I feel that change is difficult to endure. It is especially difficult when its happen in more than one way. Our school is facing new challenges this year with a new principal.


" Bringing about change is a matter of thoughtful and comprehensive planning, carefully crafted communication, significant involvement of all participants, and effective leadership. If you take the time and effort to do it right, we believe you'll succeed in the achieving the ends you seek." pg. 92
 This passage really focuses on change in regards to the leader of the school and instituting change within the school environment. I feel that its hard for teachers to have to change things when it comes to their environment, curriculum, and processes.  

"It's human nature that we're most comfortable in the presence of people who are most like us. Given the freedom to do so, we would  likely surround ourselves with people who share our values and attitudes, background, experience, language and culture-creating a faculty and staff of like-minded clones."  pg. 93
The chapters really focused on the principal as the leader and the roll he/she would play in a school. I think its only natural for a principal to want a staff that shares the same values and attitudes when building a strong faculty. Those qualities can bring a staff together especially times of change.